Pages

Friday, December 30, 2016

Everyone is saying 2016 was a bad year, but my controversial, contrarian opinion is that: 2016 was good. I started a new job that kicks ass, moved forward with my writing (get my new book The Arborist), and most importantly, avoided anything terrible happening directly to me.

Much of the "bad year" sentiment comes from shared events that everyone is aware of, such as celebrity deaths. I propose that people like me, who are in the privileged position of being able to mourn the loss of influential strangers, must actually be having a pretty good year. If I can sit at my kitchen table and shake my head at social media because something bad happened in Los Angeles, then I have shelter, I have free time, and I have the resources to be accessing information from halfway across the world. With those things alone, I'm doing better than most people on Earth, and much better than most people throughout history. 2016 isn't so bad.

Next year could be worse, of course. The tragedies that don't directly affect me now, like Brexit and Trump, could start having real, worldwide consequences. I remain a techno-optimist though; technology has, without fail, improved exponentially regardless of who is in power or how dumb the general population is. And technology is the main driver behind life, on average, continually getting better. There is no reason to think that will suddenly stop.

Anyway, here's my year in review, celebrating good stuff that entered my brain.

Most Listened-To Music:

As I do every year, here are the top 20 albums I listened to most, according to Last.fm. Some of these might not have come out in 2016, but I discovered them this year, so, whatever. This list actually looks pretty good this year; I recommend listening to any of these you haven't already heard.

Last.fm also provided some cool new stats about my listening habits this year:

The new job started in June, which obviously had an effect on my listening habits.

Best Television:

I watched a lot of TV in 2016. I don't really remember what I watched, but off the top of my head, the things that stuck with me most were:

Stranger Things

Black Mirror

Making a Murderer

Luke Cage

Westworld

Halt and Catch Fire

Sense8

Mr. Robot

Best Movies:

Again, I don't remember every movie I watched, or which actually came out this year, but here are the ones that come to mind when I think back:

The Greasy Strangler

The Lobster

10 Cloverfield Lane

Captain America: Civil War

Rogue One

The Invitation

Don't Breathe

Green Room

The Conjuring 2

Best Books:

This is another category where I have a record of everything I took in, thanks to Goodreads. Here are the books that came out around 2016, and that I liked:

I Will Rot Without You by Danger Slater

Authority by Jeff Vandermeer

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett

Ritualistic Human Sacrifice by C.V. Hunt

That's all! See? There was a lot of good stuff this year even though David Bowie is probably responsible for inspiring half of it, and he died. But maybe the next David Bowie was born this year. Maybe it's your crappy kid. You never know.

Happy new year to each and every one of the five people who still read this. See you when the pixels turn to 7.

Saturday, December 10, 2016

My girlfriend came back from an expedition to the bad part of town, and shouted "I got you a gift! You're going to love it!"

She was correct.

This is Auntie Virus. The first thing you'll notice is that she is extremely dirty. Just soaked in various fluids. That's because she has been sitting on the shelf of a second-hand store for a very long time; if I had to guess, I'd say since the 90s. Meg thought she might have bed bugs or worms, so she lived in a plastic bag for a while.

Why would I assume she's from the 90s? Let's dig into Auntie Virus's true purpose.

At first glance, she appears to be a nurse with a computer for a head, but that would be doing her a disservice. Auntie Virus has layers. She is a Friendly Computer Companion that is also ... wait for it ... A PHOTO FRAME!!! The idea here is that you cut out a tiny picture of someone, then stick it in Ms. Virus's computer monitor head, like some horrible Silent Hill cyborg nurse that wears your loved one's face.

And she sits on any computer! At least she did, in the 90s. I think she'd have trouble balancing on the 6.1mm-thick computer I'm typing this on in 2016.

Apparently computers were seen as so soul-sucking that you needed another fake computer on top to "keep you smiling." With the idea of social media still a few years off, the only companionship to be found while surfing the web was a doll named E-Male who cruelly imitates your boyfriend, promising "you'll never be lonely when I'm on your computer."

N E V E R B E L O N E L Y A G A I N

That's right, Auntie Virus is only one member of the WebHeads family. All the classic early Internet stereotypes are here, like the aforementioned e-MALE (a person with a penis who is online), The HACKER (a hacker), WEB SURFER (lol he's a literal surfer), eve SHOPPER (an online shopper who still needs bags?), WEBMASTER (a superhero for some reason?), and Dot E. COM (um ... a person with a plant on her head ... ???).

I wanted to meet them all, but unfortunately, iwebheads.com is no longer in service. WEBMASTER ain't so super after all.

I said Auntie Virus has layers, so let's go one layer deeper. You may have noticed that she has pins sticking out of her chest. Those weren't mentioned anywhere on the box, were they? Oh, what have we here ... the doll came with a note:

We're venturing outside of WebHeads lore now, because I believe this note was put there by the owner of the second-hand shop. This person, presumably a powerful witch or warlock, seized the full potential of putting an actual person's face on a doll. Auntie Virus's purpose has been hijacked; she is no longer designed to make you smile, but to remotely murder your enemies.

I guess the pure WebHeads experience wasn't moving this thing off the shelf, so this person thought "maybe this will be a must-have holiday item if I, by hand, transform it into a Voodoo doll."

Monday, November 07, 2016

I try to walk a lot. My step count has gone down since I started working from home, but I still get out and wander the neighborhood at least once a day, and use my feet as a means of transportation whenever I need to be somewhere else. Through years of walking, I have come to realize something:

Walking is good.

Not only for the health benefits, which certainly do exist, on days I don't use hitting my step goal as an excuse for an extra slice of cheesecake. But while walking is good for the body, I think it's better for the brain, the spirit, and even the community.

Walking is good for the brain because it doesn't use it. Driving and other forms of getting around generally require (or should require) near-100% concentration. Walking doesn't. The brain is free to take in the sights around it and learn something, even if it's just where the coolest outdoor cats hang out, or how many shades of orange trees go through in autumn. It is also free to take in more traditional intellectual pursuits, like podcasts, audiobooks, or online courses. Transportation time becomes brain time.

Walking is good for the spirit, whatever the hell that means, because walking time can be used for things other than pure intellect. There is a lot of evidence that occasionally shutting off the brain is good for mental health, and when you combine that with physical activity, it can reduce the stress that crushes so many spirits. It's also a time to let the mind wander, which is a critical phase in any pursuit that requires creativity—because nobody comes up with good ideas by sitting down and staring at a blank screen labeled goodideas.docx.

Walking is good for the community, because it gives an accurate sense of place. A long walk can meander through various neighborhoods, each with subtle differences in the people, the buildings, the feel. Those differences are missed when they fly past in a car. More importantly, there is a sense for how far apart those neighborhoods are, how they border on each other, how one leads to another. Slowly taking in the story of a city is a better way of getting to know it than always rushing through it to a specific place, which is akin to reading the beginning and ending of a book then claiming to understand what it was saying.

And maybe that's good for the community, because when the community isn't really understood, it's hard to make good decisions about it.

Not everyone can walk, or walk everywhere, or walk far, but when possible, walking is good. Not bad. Good.

About Phronk

My name is Mike. Some people call me Phronk. I'm a person, and I live in London, Ontario, Canada. I write a lot, hence the blog, but also do a lot of other stuff, including: eating, reading, watching stuff on screens, sleeping, using web sites, and walking. I have a PhD in psychology, which is why I'm so smart and you have to call me "doctor." I research and analyze technology for a living. Now you know everything about me.